The Jesus I Never Knew

right shape. . . . Perhaps (in short) this extraordinary thing is really the ordinary thing; at least

the normal thing, the centre.

G. K. Chesterton

1

The Jesus

I Thought I Knew

I first got acquainted with Jesus when I was a child, singing "Jesus Loves Me" in Sunday

school, addressing bedtime prayers to "Dear Lord Jesus," watching Bible Club teachers move

cutout figures across a flannelgraph board. I associated Jesus with Kool-Aid and sugar cookies

and gold stars for good attendance.

I remember especially one image from Sunday school, an oil painting that hung on the

concrete block wall. Jesus had long, flowing hair, unlike that of any man I knew. His face was

thin and handsome, his skin waxen and milky white. He wore a robe of scarlet, and the artist had

taken pains to show the play of light on its folds. In his arms, Jesus cradled a small sleeping

lamb. I imagined myself as that lamb, blessed beyond all telling.

Recently, I read a book that the elderly Charles Dickens had written to sum up the life of

Jesus for his children. In it, the portrait emerges of a sweet Victorian nanny who pats the heads

of boys and girls and offers such advice as, "Now, children, you must be nice to your mummy

and daddy." With a start I recalled the Sunday school image of Jesus that I grew up with:

someone kind and reassuring, with no sharp edges at all-a Mister Rogers before the age of

children's television. As a child I felt comforted by such a person.

Later, while attending a Bible college, I encountered a different image. A painting popular in

those days depicted Jesus, hands out-stretched, suspended in a Dali-like pose over the United

Nations building in New York City. Here was the cosmic Christ, the One in whom all things

inhere, the still point of the turning world. This world figure had come a long way from the

lamb-toting shepherd of my childhood.

Still, students spoke of the cosmic Jesus with a shocking intimacy. The faculty urged us to

develop a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ," and in chapel services we hymned our love

for him in most familiar terms. One song told about walking beside him in a gar-den with dew

still on the roses. Students testifying about their faith casually dropped in phrases like "The Lord

told me. . . ." My own faith hung in a kind of skeptical suspension during my time there. I was

wary, confused, questioning.

Looking in retrospect on my years at Bible college, I see that, despite all the devotional

intimacies, Jesus grew remote from me there. He became an object of scrutiny. I memorized the

list of thirty-four specific miracles in the Gospels but missed the impact of just one miracle. I